Equinox
by temperednightsky
Summary: Who would ever paint on random people, just because they were asleep? / Fairy AU


Sleep was only a good option as long as it made sense to get up as soon as the sun was setting in the human world. However, it wasn't his sense for time that woke him up, but a rather peculiar sounds, one that was so foreign to his ears, it gave him no choice but to open his eyes and see for himself.  
The woods around him were dark, as usual. The lands of his kind were always colored in eternal night, rich purples and blues were the colors of the trees and of the glimmering, dark sky above him.  
And nothing was wrong with the trees or the sky, but sound was still there, muffled, as if something was trying to hold it back.  
Soul rubbed his eyes and slowly moved into a sitting position. It must have been close to night time, he could tell. Soon the other fairies of his kind would start doing whatever they have to do, they would put people to sleep, bring them dreams, and make sure that they stayed warm in their beds. That was the kind of thing dark fairies like him did, except for a few exceptions. His own talents were a little questionable.  
He took a look around, but saw nothing suspicious at first. What kind of being would even be stupid enough to come into Dark Woods, most would just get lost and never find their way out of them. And the other fairies didn't visit his kind.

It wasn't until he tried to get up that he noticed something weird with his feet. Indeed, there was bright, pink paint on his toe nails! How did it get there? He stared at the color in awe, he had never actually seen something so bright and glowy before, even if it didn't amuse him in the slightest. But the color was mesmerizing.

But just then there was the sound again, and he could clear hear it now, someone was laughing at him. No, someone was _giggling_. From the direction of the woods, and away from the dark lake he had been sleeping at, he could make out a figure peeking at him from behind a particularly gnarly, blue tree, and whoever it was, they were glowing in the most otherworldly colors he had ever seen – in front of the dark, purple woods, they looked like the little fireflies he sometime saw when he crossed the veil into the world of humans to do his work. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, but then he remembered that this person was laughing at him – and probably had also painted his nails while he was asleep. And they were also pretty foolish to think that he wouldn't notice them, glowing like they were.  
The figure hid behind the tree again and he could see some weird, bright green sparks flying, they ignited everything they hid with a glow of the same color, until it vanished again after a few seconds. Some of them were stuck on the tree, like small, green beacons in the eternal night of the forest around them.  
He decided to creep closer to the source of the laughter and the light, slowly and hidden in the shadows, like he learned his whole life.

It was a girl, another fairy, with glowing, green eyes. She was dressed completely in yellow and red clothes, and she was giggling so much, her toes curled into the violet grass beneath her. She was literally laughing herself silly, and continued to do so until she sank to the ground, even after he crouched down next to her and looked at her carefully.  
She was glowing, so intensely and beautifully, he could not peel his eyes from her. She was indeed a firefly in these lands, he had not known how the fairies from outside of the dark woods looked like, and much less had he ever seen one.  
She wore lots of gorgeous, luminescent scarves made from sheer fabric, painted and dyed in the brightest colors he had ever seen. Her pink dress sparkled with all colors of the rainbow, even in the dark. Even her smooth skin was glowing magically.

"Hello!" She finally said, breathless and not without audible excitement. She had a sweet voice, it was easy on the ears. He rarely heard anyone talk, his kind liked isolation. Everyone kept to themselves. "How are you feeling? You were just sleeping there."

Yes, he was just sleeping there, that was completely right. Nothing else, until someone decided to _paint on him_. Even if she was the most beautiful fairy he had ever seen (and he could count the ones he had seen down on one hand), just painting on him because he was sleeping was a weird thing to do.  
Who would ever _paint _on random people, just because they were asleep?

"Are you alright? Do you even talk?" She inched closer to him, puzzled and curious, and he imitated her, just in reverse, slowly moving away. What was he supposed to say? The last time he had the chance to talk to someone, it was to elders of the forest, and that was over a messenger nymph without any visual contact.

Soul shook his head.

"Who are you and why are you even here?"

The girl clapped her hands together in joy. "Oh, you can talk!"

If he felt confused about her presence before, his condition was not getting better now.

"Damn right I can, but who are you? Or should I just call you 'Oh, you can talk'?"

She giggled as a reply before she began to fix her clothes. "No, you shouldn't! I'm Maka, and I live in the Valley. I was just curious what was at the end of the path behind the gates to the forest, and it was really amazing! I never knew it would suddenly be dark!"

The Valley was a big settlement far away from the Dark Woods, that much did Soul know. It was forbidden to go there, since it had a normal cycle of day and night and his kind was not very fond of bright daylight. It was one of the reasons why their forest had an eternal night spell on it.  
Apparently the fairies outside of the woods looked very different (even if he hardly remembered what the other dark fairies looked like).  
They also never came over to mingle because, as he was once told by a more or less peculiar moth, they were very afraid of his people. The moth told him they had all kinds of stories about the dark fairies, and they believed them with a childish ease, even if the last time the rest of their world came into contact with his kind was a long time ago, even before humans started building towns.

"And why would you come here?" Soul asked, the fact that someone would just enter the woods without any further thought sparked his interest. She also was the first person to talk to him since..since forever, and he wasn't even an adult yet.

Maka shrugged. "It looked interesting. And there were no guards at the gate, so I just figured I might take a look. I've been walking for hours! It's so annoying to far travel without being able to just blink there, this place doesn't have any known magic lines for blinking straight onto! But luckily, an owl was nice enough to tell me where to find the next fairy."

"Blinking?" Soul had never heard of such a thing before, and it confused him greatly. What in the world was she talking about?

But the girl just smiled. "You don't know what blinking is? Okay," she tucked her hands behind her back, "I will tell you, if you tell me your name."

Well, this was probably hopeless. He'd been comfortable without having anyone but the occasional animal to talk to, but now he was stuck with a very, very bubbly and curious fairy. It wasn't that bad, but he hoped she wouldn't be a permanent guest from now on, he didn't know how to handle her need for conversation.

"Soul," He sighed, defeated. What use was there in resistance.

"That's an awesome name!" Maka chirped, "You like this place a lot, right? You were sleeping here, after all."

She was dodging the subject of blinking, but it didn't matter all that much. Soul was far too busy tuning his brain to function in the right way for an intelligent conversation, but it didn't work. He might as well just go along with any topic she decided to bring up.

"No..eh..I live here."

"You live here?" She started walking towards the lake shore, bare feet brushing the purplish grass and leaving behind a slight, green glow. Not as intense as the one that came from her hands when she was touching the tree, but still clearly visible. "But this is just a lake?"

"It is."

Maka looked at him, and her luminescent green eyes carried the look of a person who didn't quite get what was going on. "Don't you have...settlements, or houses?"

He shook his head. What was she expecting to hear from him? That he owned the lake? It was just his favorite spot, and no one else was there, so he just claimed it as his place to be.

"Do dark fairies not...build any houses?" She moved her head like a particularly studious bird, examining her surroundings like she was hoping to find any trace of a building.

"How do you even know I am a dark fairy?" Soul asked while walking past the curious girl to sit down on a large rock next to the water. Indeed, how did she know? He would expect that no one would even think about them anymore apart from the stories they were apparently telling each other. If they were scared, they must have expected the dark fairies to look like nighthoppers.

"Uuh..you are pretty dark, you know," Maka paced up and down next to the dark waters, "That is, you don't really...look like someone who is out in the sun a lot."

Did he? He looked down in front of him, and yes, he noticed that he wasn't quite as glowy as she was. In fact, he wasn't very bright at all, the only thing twinkly about him were the partially enchanted fabrics he was able to conjure himself, and even they were no match for her mass of sparkly garments. Or her radiant everything – she stuck out like a sore thumb, at least as long as she was in these woods with him.  
He watched as she sat down in front of him, carefully tucking and pulling all kinds of glistening pieces of clothing around. It was a little wondrous to him, the way she was wearing all of these things and still managed to look half naked for some reason. The way her dress was sitting on her chest was not helping – at all. How did she keep it from falling down?  
Did the fairies from outside the Dark Woods all dress this way? He hardly knew how his own kind dressed, and when he thought about his mother, he just remembered her wearing more than that. A lot more, or at least something that provided more coverage.

"Are you alright? You're not falling asleep again, are you?" Maka looked up to him, and he willed himself into thinking about other things than fabrics and this bundle full of life's beauty that had been presented to him so unexpectedly.

"No, I just…," He didn't really know what to say. "The fabric of your dress is nice."

"Yes! A friend made it for me, she is really good at conjuring clothes!" Maka smiled a bright smile. "But I asked you something while you were spacing out!"

Did she? He hadn't noticed over the sound of his internal astonishment. "About what..?"

"I asked you if you can tell me about what dark fairies do, so, what do they do? Is it something dark, do you really eat children's souls, or is it just a tale?" She pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her arms on them.

Did they really only know things like this about them? He actually thought it would be more harmless scary stuff, like tricking people or whatever they thought was scary. But the idea to eat souls never crossed his mind before, how peculiar. Who would ever eat a soul.  
Except maybe the nighthoppers. But they were more interested in eating him than eating an actual soul.

"We uh..we do all kinds of stuff at night. Some of us take care of the comfort of humans and..there are also more mischievous ones, like..my mother was a ghost light, they lure humans into forests at night and give them a good scare. But nothing evil, if that's what you want to know..?" He just hoped everything sounded right, it was probably the longest sentence he had spoken since he left his parents.

"A ghost light? Is it like a will-o'-the-wisp? I know a wisp fairy, but she guides people out of the fog, she doesn't scare them," Maka looked like she was not quite deep in thought, but she was definitely thinking.

"Not really, I think they are different? I never heard of a wisp fairy, but ghost lights are not very helpful, they just scare humans. They probably need it to live, no idea." The conversation was making him tired, and he just woke up, too.

"And what do you do?"

"What?" He looked down into her face, she also looked pretty tired.

"What is your thing, your job. What do you do to humans?" She cocked her head to the side.

Well, that escalated quickly.  
Even if he didn't know her that well, he felt weird. How did you tell someone your magic was broken?

"I'm..supposed to be a dream weaver," He sighed, "But I can't do it."

"What does that mean?"

"I can't do it, I'm not able to send dreams to humans, I only send them nightmares. I'm just no good at actually following my destiny." Soul rested his elbow on his thigh and propped his head up with his hand. "And you? You dodge my questions a lot."

It didn't feel like she was quite as bubbly anymore, maybe his explanation came over a little harsher than it should have. But what was he supposed to say, he just told her the truth.

"I'm a spring fairy, but I am very bad at controlling the magic, so I just make everything I touch bloom, as long as it is fit to house flowers. It happens with the flow of emotion," Maka yawned.

So, she wasn't irritated, just tired. Soul felt relieved, it was a better reaction than the elders had in store for him when they forbade him to use his magic in the human world.  
He felt a little jealous, at least her magic wasn't as negative has his. He saw it himself, she just made everything sprout flowers all over the place, and stuff started to glow green. Nothing bad.

"Is that bad?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not really, but nature fairies have a big problem, if our magic goes wild in the human world, they can see us. Usually we're invisible to them, but it stops if we lose control."

He knew that he was invisible in the human world, but he could disable it at will. Maybe, he thought, it was the same to the other fairies if their powers were under control. That was not problem for him, he had great control, but not the desired results.  
At least they had something concerning their magic in common and this whole encounter was not completely meaningless.

"Isn't it night time where you are from? The Valley, or whatever the name was?" He looked up into the sky to determine the time, but could only get a vague view of the blue moon. But it had to be, if he was awake. "Aren't you tired?"

Suddenly, Maka's eyes were wide open and she started to get visibly nervous, she bounced to her feet, and her hands moved over her mouth.

"That's right, oh my, how could I forget! Everyone must be worried!..Oh!" She suddenly looked up towards a tall tree. "There _is_ a magic line here! But it wasn't on any map!"

"Magic line...are you talking about the blinking thing again?" Soul scratched his head in confusion.

"Yes, yes! But I'll leave now! Don't worry, I'll keep this line a secret – I'll visit again tomorrow and explain everything, alright?"

And before he could answer, she was gone and only a few, vanishing sparkles were left in her spot.  
Even if she was a little too enthusiastic, he was looking forward to having a person to talk to.


End file.
